Well done Harriet

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68830796

Finally, they are going to close the loophole that allowed convicted sex offenders to still have rights and access to their own children. Up until now they have been able to insist on involvement, even from prison. They could get involved in decisions around choosing schools, stop foreign holiday, object to house moves and request visits. This will now be stopped, thank goodness.

We now know that the father of the boy who murdered Brianna Ghey was a convicted sex offender and awaiting trial for a further offence. What that must have done to that boy as he was growing up I cannot imagine. The mother has stayed with the father and all of the children grew up in this environment. I just don't understand this. If a parent (male/female) has been convicted of a sex offence involving children or even adults, then social services must step in and in my opinion remove those children. The parent who is not guilty must be given the option of either staying with their partner and losing the children or leaving. 

I think sometimes there are just no grey areas and we can be very slow to act. As in, we wait until one of the children does something terrible before we do anything.

Mind you, I am hard line on this and I appreciate others might be more compassionate but I think this should also apply to the children of persistent offenders of any type. Growing up with a drug dealing or professional burglar parent, even a committed fraudster is just as harmful. If you grow up surrounded by crime, it must have an effect, it's got to. 

In fact my law would cover anyone convicted of an offence that carries more than a two year sentence. Call me hard, but children need better protection than they are getting. Sometimes I watch  historical programmes about forced adoption and that TV programme where they find long lost family members and the cynic in me wonders how many times they find out the parent was awful and just don't tell the searchers that mum was a convicted drug dealer, involved in fraud and deception and a casual prostitute who got into fights when she was drunk and never ever changed her life. In fact mum spent more time in prison than she did out of it. 

Hard, but sometimes you are better off without them. 

There's an article in the news, saying that children in the north are more likely to be taken into care and adopted. Yes, it's true and has been for sometime. It's nothing to do with the recession. It's a more hardline approach that if you don't stop taking drugs, getting into trouble, continuous shoplifting and generally being a terrible example to your children, we will take them off you.